It also supports the Unity game engine and Pixologic GoZ ZBrush workflow, making it suitable for a range of production environments, including smaller specialized studios and individual artists.
LightWave 11 is designed to be a complete out-of-the-box pipeline that puts modeling, rigging, effects, dynamics, animation, and final rendering capabilities at the fingertips of 3D artists.
The new release offers a Virtual Preview Renderer (VPR) for on-screen realtime rendering, and Anaglyph Stereoscopic Preview for real-time interocular, red-blue anaglyphic separations.
Additional features include the ability to duplicate a vast number of objects in a scene with very little memory overhead; the ability to create huge polygon groups with great detail while retaining reasonable rendering times; and the ability to scale, position, rotate, and surface randomly cloned objects for realistic detail.
Animation can be added to grouped objects, such as such as birds, fish, insects, animals and aircraft using a new motion modifier. Users can now calculate crowd avoidance of neighboring objects, target alignment, and apply cohesive attractions with the motion modifier.
A new modeler tool allows users to pre-fracture objects so they are ready for destruction. And explosions can be animated with or without using dynamics. In addition, users can collapse buildings, create explosions, or quickly place objects in a natural-looking random pattern.
The upcoming release offers Support for new controller types, including the Sony PlayStation®Move. Additional LightWave 11 features include powerful new render buffer capabilities, robust Python scripting functionality, FiberFX enhancements, and user interface improvements. LightWave 11 is expected to ship Q4 2011 for a suggested retail price of $1,495. Upgrade pricing from earlier versions of LightWave will be $695.